Thanks Karen!

We had a surprise delivered today!

Karen sent us her pay it forward prize! How fun!

You don't have to look so excited, Elijah...
He was actually really excited and wanted to rip into it right away. But I told him to wait... not! I couldn't wait to see what my friend Karen had sent!

She sent us some delicious Rwandan coffee, yummy soaps and a handy activity book for toddlers and a sweet card!

We had to smell the coffee...
The book is full of easy activities for kids Elijah's age! Yay!

Look at this...
Senegalese Cookies!

Some of you newer readers may not know that I was born and spent time in Senegal, Africa so this was really fun for me to see!

Thank you, Karen! You're really kind! I feel bad that you spent so much on postage to ship this over here to us. It was really thoughtful of you and brightened this rainy day for us!

The rest of you might want to go over and try some of those delicious recipes she has on her blog.

Now it's my turn to pay it forward. I haven't forgotten! I'm trying to find the perfect thing. But i don't get the chance to go shopping very often so it's taking me a while to find something! But I promise i will soon!

I hope you all are enjoying your Friday. Have a great weekend.

Killyleagh Castle

Killyleagh Castle

How would you like to live here?

BACKGROUND

Killyleagh Castle is the oldest inhabited castle in Ireland.

The castle has been in the hands of the Hamilton Family (they have five kids!) since the early 17th Century. Although the original castle dates back to 1160, the Towers themselves were a more recent addition in just 1620.

And guess what!? You can even stay in the gate house towers! They are made up into guest rooms! So come visit us and stay in a castle!

How to make Gluten Free Calzones...

... with two little ones and with out losing your sanity.

First of all get your kitchen associates settled comfortably. Make sure they have enough things to keep them occupied for the next half hour so you don't have to use floury hands to toss a teething ring way.

First make the dough.

Combine yeast, warm water and sugar. Mix lightly and add oil.
(The complete recipe is at the bottom of the post.)

Mix the dry ingredients...Add the bubbly yeast mixture to the dry.

Grate your cheese...


Chop the peppers...

Have fun...
Prepare other yummy filling you'd like to add to your calzones.

Keep everyone happy...
Make your sauce...
Or use a jar of sauce if you'd prefer.

Get your older kitchen associates to help assemble the calzones...


Fold and press...

GLUTEN FREE CALZONE

1 1/2 tsp Dry Active Yeast
1 cup warm water (110 degrees)
1 Tbs Sugar
2 Tbs Olive Oil
2 Cups Gluten Free Flour Mix
3/4 Cup Sweet (Glutinous) Rice Flour
2 tsp Italian Seasoning Mixture
1/2 tsp salt

Combine yeast, warm water and sugar. Mix lightly and float olive oil on top of the yeast mixture. Let stand for 10 - 15 minutes. It should be bubbly on top before use.

Mix flours seasoning and salt and add wet yeast mixture. Divide dough into 3 parts (or 2 if you want the calzone bigger) . Lightly dust a surface to roll out the dough. I use parchment paper to roll it out because then you can bake on the paper. Roll into a circle approx 11-12 inches in diameter (or 14-15" if doing 2 calzones).

I found this recipe here.

You can really fill them with anything you want. Spinach, cheese, ham, pepperoni, sausage, onions, green peppers, mushrooms.

What is your favorite combination?


PS. I'm planning on making peach jam today. Come back soon to see if it turns out!

At The Beach

Can you guess what the theme is this week?

The Beach!

This is my sister in her wedding dress at the beach a few months ago.

My sister was also my midwife for our son's birth six months ago. We went to her birth center and our now three year old Elijah was there too.

Yesterday he saw a lady with a baby and said "We have a baby too! Ethan! Where did we get Ethan? From Crystal?"

Crystal, I thought you might like to hear what Elijah thinks! =)

Knowing Him

(Photo taken last week looking over Strangford Lock towards Scrabo Tower)

I found an old journal from a few years ago and as I was looking through it I saw this sections of a book that I had written down.

"The comradeship of God is made up out of men who know their poverty. He can do nothing with the man who thinks that he is of use to God.
As Christians we are not out for our own cause at all, we are out for the cause of God, which can never be our cause. We do not know what God is after, but we have to maintain our relationship with Him what ever happens. We must never allow anything to injure our relationship with God; if it does get injured we must take time and get it put right.
The main thing about Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the atmosphere produced by that realtionship.
That is all God asks us to look after, and it is the one thing that is being continually assailed."
(emphasis added by me)

I'm not sure where it's from but it might be from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.

It reminded me that the important thing is our relationship to God. Out of that He produces the work. He needs us to be in the right place with Him before he can use us. Most of us focus on what we feel "called" to or what we can do for God. But it's not so much about what we do, it's about how well we know Him.

I know I get caught up into praying "What is it exactly that you want me to do Lord?"
What we need is to start at the beginning by maintaining and growing in our walk personally with God. Then out of that we will naturally do His will. We may not even realize we are being used by God. But that keeps us from becoming proud which we know is a sin. And as we are "working" for God and keeping our focus on Him we won't get burnt out because it's not about the work we are doing, it's about God and our relationship to Him! And really anything we do can be done as an offering to Him if we are walking in fellowship with Him.

Does that make sense?

What do you think? I hope you all are having a great weekend!

Photo Shoot in our Living Room!

Some of you saw me share this link on Facebook last night. But I wanted to say more about it here.

You've heard me mention before that our friend George is starting a photography business.

A few weeks ago he asked if he could come take pictures of the boys. Do you think i'd say no to an offer like that? Of course not! So one evening he and his sister Ruth came to our house with their portable studio and set it up right here in comfort of our own home! Hence the photo shoot going on in our living room in the picture above.

It was a lot of fun. And George took a lot of great shots. I haven't seen them all but i've seen the ones he put on his web site... www.gmcstudios.co.uk

I borrowed one of Ethan off his site to share with you all here.

Didn't he do a great job? He also took some family photos for us. We are hoping to use one for a family prayer card that we'll put together soon.

In other Ethan news... his first tooth finally pushed through this week! He's been working on that one for a while now!

He's also getting more and more anxious to start crawling. He'll push up like this...

And he'll move his legs forward a bit but he can't figure out how to move his arms forward yet with out falling on his face. So he'll stay like this and wave his little tush in the air for a while before flopping to his belly with a grunt and a sigh.

We took him to see the health visitor yesterday. Just so she would see that we can bring him in if we need to. He weighs over 18 pounds now. That's average for his age. But he's a bit above average in length. Is he going to be tall like his brother?

Of course while we were there we were pressured to have the boys vaccinated. But that's another story for another day.

I hope you all are having a fantastic weekend!

Scrabo Tower- Guardian of the North Down Coast

I said in my last post that I wanted to tell you about our trip to Scrabo Tower. Here we go... with lots of pictures!

We went out for lunch and then drove up to Scrabo Tower.

Click on this link for a panoramic view from the hill.

It's a short but steep climb from the car park to the top of the hill. But there are some beautiful views on the way up and at the top.


It was pretty windy and it sounded so nice blowing through this wheat field.



Scrabo Tower built in 1857 as a memorial to a local land owner, Charles Stewart, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry. You can read more about its history here.

The tower is 125 feet high and built from the stone of Scrabo Hill itself.

We climbed the 122 steps to the look out at the top!

The view from the top.
We could see rain coming from every direction!

On a clear day you can see the Mountains of Mourne and the Scottish coast!

People used to live in this tower. Here we are in one of the rooms.

The first tenant was William McKay, a foreman at the quarry, who lived here with his wife and eight children.

Our family with the town of Newtownards behind us.

Well, i hope you enjoyed this little tour of part of this beautiful country! Come visit and we'll take you there to see it for yourself! =)

Sunday Stroll

Our walk the other night took us by some bright blue hydrangias! They were so bright and beautiful!

Elijah wanted to help push Ethan and he does great for the most part but then he would get distracted and almost drive poor Ethan into the hedge or off the curb! So i took over while he picked flowers and chased ladybugs.

Ethan's pretty calm in spite of being pushed around by a crazy big brother.

This sweet kitty cat found us and both Elijah and I were hopeing it would follow us home so we could keep him. We may or may not have walked extra slow on the way home just in case he decided he wanted to follow us and see where we lived in case he ever wanted some lovin'!

Elijah with Sketrick Castle in the background. He calls it "our caslte" and loves to climb on it.

See that tower on the right side of the photo on the hill? That's Scrabo Tower and I have pictures to share of our trip there next!